The art of Jodie Schmidt

Where did All My Time Go?

I just got back from a much-needed vacation to Cape May, New Jersey, last week to celebrate my ten year anniversary. I had a wonderful, relaxing time and got a chance to just be, enjoying sunsets, walking around the town of Cape May and drinking in the beautiful Victorian architecture, listening to the reassuring rhythm of crashing waves, tasting great food, and reconnecting with my man. But when I got back from the trip, I had a major reality check. Several tasks awaited my attention, such as: scheduling a doctor’s appointment, grocery shopping, cooking, laundry, dishes, vacuuming, putting all my things away and preparing for two upcoming art shows to name a few. I felt overwhelmed just thinking about it, and my to-do list seemed endless. In addition, I had fallen behind in several areas of my art business prior to my vacation: such as an inventory of paintings and sketches, producing new art, bookkeeping, blogging, and following up on sales leads.

It was quite an adjustment to go from four days of unstructured vacation days to a more regimented schedule. During this time, I didn’t have to clean cook or do anything much, unless I wanted to plan an outing or decide where I wanted to have lunch or dinner, while I was a guest at the Angel of the Sea Bed and Breakfast in Cape May, New Jersey. I highly recommend this Bed and Breakfast if you need a relaxing getaway and you like historic towns. Now, I am trying to figure out how to catch up on things for my art business, without feeling overwhelmed. Enter an article I read this week entitled, Control Your Time and Become a More Successful Artist, by Jason Horejs, October 11, 2017, http://reddotblog.com. It seems that someone frequently writes a blog post about a subject that is meaningful to me just when I need it most. Thank you, Jason Horejs, owner of Xanadu Art Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona!

Like me, Jason has been struggling with time management and organizing the many hats that we as entrepreneurs wear as small business owners, such as following up on sales leads, answering emails, bookkeeping, marketing, etc, (Horejs, 2017). But unlike me, he is a gallery owner and doesn’t produce artwork; he markets other artists and runs a gallery to help promote the artwork of other artists. I, on the other hand, am an artist and business owner, but we seem to be following similar tracks in our lives.And in the words of Jason Horejs (2017),

the list was “simply too high, and “I felt I was falling behind in accomplishing everything I wanted to get done.” In Horejs’s article, Control Your Time and Become a More Successful Artist, (2017) he shares how in the midst of an overwhelming to-do list, he found some time management tools that have been helpful in clarifying his priorities and getting things done (Horejs, 2017). One of the tools he mentions is an Ideal Week template, which is based on a model created by Michael Hyatt, former CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers (Horejs, 2017).

In the Ideal Week Template, Jason Horejs blocks out his day in segments of time to define what tasks are most pressing and how much time he plans to spend on them (Horejs, 2017). Michael Hyatt offers a downloadable spreadsheet on his blog, which can be customized to fit your schedule (Horejs, 2017). According to Horejs, this method of blocking out his time in segments has been helpful in prioritizing the most important tasks. In addition, Hyatt suggests that it is helpful to begin your day with “your long-term priorities,” instead of daily busy work (Horejs, 2017). After reading this article, I am realizing that most of my time is spent on day to day tasks such as cataloging art inventory, marketing my art projects and art shows on Instagram and Facebook, following up sales leads, blogging or researching articles about art business which could make good blog topics, maintaining my artist website, etc.

And while these tasks are important for running a successful art business, I am realizing that very little time has gone into working on new artwork. And as an artist, making artwork is what I would like to spend most of my time doing. However, the only art practice I have been somewhat consistent with has been drawing portraits for my 100 Faces in 100 Days Drawing Challenge, which I started back in June of this year. I still have 5 more drawings to complete to achieve the 100 portraits drawing challenge goal. I want to take some time in the coming week to block out my ideal week and see where I can block in time to work on my drawings and paintings, preferably in the morning before other things intrude or my energy wanes. I will let you know how it goes and post the artwork that I plan to create. Meanwhile, here are some vacation pictures that my husband took with his Nikon D40 camera. If you are interested in downloading the Ideal template, here is the pdf file,https://michaelhyatt.com/myresources/my-ideal-week.pdf. Thanks for stopping by! my-ideal-week